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Posted by Tink Taylor on December 23, 2008
The Internet has radically changed the marketing landscape. Crucially, it allows smaller brands to punch above their weight by offering a wide range of brand-building tactics that can deliver high value returns for relatively low initial investment.
But many marketers continue to see the Internet as little more than a cheap way to generate leads. By investing in online brand-building now, marketers can engage with prospects and build market share. In the longer term, neglecting the Internet could jeopardise business survival.
The rationale for building a trusted online brand is compelling – if you want to avoid the margin erosion that always afflicts those who sell solely on price. A trusted brand creates a reason for someone to buy from you, above and beyond the more rational considerations of price and features. Conveying transparency and trust in your dealings with customers enforces brand values and creates a bond between company and customer.
Get it wrong, and prospects or customers will not trust you with their personal data. But it is hard for companies to gain the trust of customers online. Here’s why:
- Consumers are wary, thanks to years of spam, phishing threats and media coverage. The noise around this issue is set to increase with Microsoft’s upcoming browser, Internet Explorer 8. This contains a new feature called InPrivate, which allows surfers to keep their data and browsing activity secret. With tools like these, designed to protect a visitor’s identity, it will become more difficult for marketers to persuade targets to part with their personal data – a fundamental part of most digital marketing campaigns.
- Monitoring your brand online is more important and complicated than offline. The Internet creates an echo-chamber for potentially dissatisfied visitors to voice their opinions and thereby damage brand reputation. The result of this is lost revenue and long-term brand damage – especially with the permanent nature of web content.
- Unifying all messaging and outward-facing contact is harder to control, because there are so many online channels and different methods of communication, such as search, advertising and email. Traditional or engrained organisational issues and processes must also be addressed.
Get it right and the sky can be the limit. Facebook is a good example of a brand that has achieved this. A few years ago, Facebook was an unknown brand with very little awareness. Now it is one of the most recognised brands in the world, with tens of millions of customers who trust its brand enough to divulge vast amounts of personal data. Facebook has earned this trust by being respectful and transparent in its relationship with its customers.
So how do companies establish Facebook-levels of online trust?
Step one is to consider how you want to represent your brand online and what messages or brand values you want to communicate to your target audience. All successful marketing campaigns depend on saying the right thing to the right person in the right way at the right time. Mass marketing tactics just won’t work online, so building trust with your target audience is critical. Getting this wrong is dangerous. So, formulating a clear message and value proposition will help you promote an effective brand identity.
Step two is to address the concerns of wary users. As Google famously says: “Don’t be evil”. You must to be transparent and clearly set out privacy policies and ensure you comply with data protection and best practice. Make sure your customers know what you are doing. Don’t hide unsubscribe links. Frame your privacy policy in easy to understand language.
Step three is to monitor what people say about you online. The beauty of digital activity is that it is so easy to measure. There are several free tools you can use – Google Alerts, Omgili and Technorati to name a few. But a word of caution. As well as statistics such as open rates for email, click-throughs, website hits, it is important to measure how your online activity affects brand perceptions. And of course, ROI has to be the ultimate measure for any marketing or brand-building activity.
By Tink Taylor
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said on March 13th, 2009 at 5:59 am
I was just looking around for material on internet marketing and stumbled on your post. Nice post. I’m still looking for materials for my research.
said on April 4th, 2009 at 6:21 am
I enjoyed your post! I’ve been looking around for such material as I’m new in internet marketing. I’m basically a web designer and now I want to try something new.
said on April 7th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Hi Jeff
Good to hear you found the information in the Online Brand Building post useful. Incidentally, we have just released the very latest, 2009 edition of 'Hitting the Mark' – dotMailer's annual expose of over 40 high street brands' email campaigns. It's a real 'under the bonnet' look at how big retail brands are using email, and there are over 70 guidelines and tips, so there's plenty there for designers looking to improve their design for email. Check it out at http://www.dotmailer.co.uk/hittingthemark
said on April 24th, 2009 at 12:59 am
Traditional marketing methods don't work as well as they used to, especially cold calling where most experiences are not pleasant. The new concepts of attraction marketing, custom funded proposals and magnetic sponsoring on the other hand, will allow your customers to get to know and trust you. When you integrate these authority networker methods into your business, you act as an educator as well as a seller. Making yourself an indispensable source of information can establish your identity as an authority marketer. The more helpful and valuable your information is the greater the chance those customers will purchase from you. Attraction marketing, custom funded proposals and magnetic sponsoring can definitely yield much more favorable results than trying to hard-sell everything.